I need a day off. Away from touristy sites, the town, the team of Poum Steung project. this motorbike will take me anywhere. let's zip off and let the wind guide me. Headed south from Siem Reap towards Tonle Sap lake there are two old temples, old Hindu style with stone construction. They built bricks and heavy stones on top of another, gradually shifting alignment until four walls touch together and form the roof. Fascinating structure. After Hindu left those temples were inhabitated by Buddhists, adding and creating their statures and carvings, building Buddhism pagoda around the Hindu towers.
Above is Wat Athvea, just outside of the city, the opposite direction from the road to Angkor Wat, therefore very quiet, no toursits while I strolled around and climbed up on the top of tower (they would never let you do that in Angkor Wat) two boys who work for the temple (cooking and cleaning for the monks) find me and guide me through the temple, not in the pushy, money-after way of children at Touristy temples. Having heard occasional visitors with their tour guides, they memorize the history of the temple and detailed information, and are able to recite it to me in good English, that's very impressive. Yet Chey (the boy on the right in the picture on upper right) hopes to go to school for English someday to obtain more tour-guiding skills.
Continue on the bike southbound, about 17km from the city, Phnom Krom is a Shivaism/Hinduism/Buddhism temple up on the top of the hill, from which you see the breathtaking view of the wet land. patches of villages, rice fields and forests you see from the hill will be covered in water and become Tonle Sap lake by May/June (in wet season Tonle Sap expands FOUR-times as large as dry season) the temple is in a poor condition, only monk i see is an old one who asks for donation for the repair of pagoda.
As many statures you see here are, these ones are headless, presumably decapitated by Khmer Rouge. and i suppose someone later replaced some heads of different statures. monks are highly educated in this country, therefore Khmer Rouge persecuted Buddhism by killing many monks, destroying temples and smashing the heads of statures. Smashing only the heads instead of the whole statures, is actually chiling demonstration to threat those who wanted to follow Buddhism.
One straight road streaches between Siem Reap and Phnom Krom. Open fields of rice and coconut trees. Frequent travelers on the boat from Phnom Penh, the capital has kept this road relatively nice. while any other road in this country that's not related to tourism, are in horrible condition. Moo!
Above is Wat Athvea, just outside of the city, the opposite direction from the road to Angkor Wat, therefore very quiet, no toursits while I strolled around and climbed up on the top of tower (they would never let you do that in Angkor Wat) two boys who work for the temple (cooking and cleaning for the monks) find me and guide me through the temple, not in the pushy, money-after way of children at Touristy temples. Having heard occasional visitors with their tour guides, they memorize the history of the temple and detailed information, and are able to recite it to me in good English, that's very impressive. Yet Chey (the boy on the right in the picture on upper right) hopes to go to school for English someday to obtain more tour-guiding skills.
Continue on the bike southbound, about 17km from the city, Phnom Krom is a Shivaism/Hinduism/Buddhism temple up on the top of the hill, from which you see the breathtaking view of the wet land. patches of villages, rice fields and forests you see from the hill will be covered in water and become Tonle Sap lake by May/June (in wet season Tonle Sap expands FOUR-times as large as dry season) the temple is in a poor condition, only monk i see is an old one who asks for donation for the repair of pagoda.
As many statures you see here are, these ones are headless, presumably decapitated by Khmer Rouge. and i suppose someone later replaced some heads of different statures. monks are highly educated in this country, therefore Khmer Rouge persecuted Buddhism by killing many monks, destroying temples and smashing the heads of statures. Smashing only the heads instead of the whole statures, is actually chiling demonstration to threat those who wanted to follow Buddhism.
One straight road streaches between Siem Reap and Phnom Krom. Open fields of rice and coconut trees. Frequent travelers on the boat from Phnom Penh, the capital has kept this road relatively nice. while any other road in this country that's not related to tourism, are in horrible condition. Moo!
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